Carrie (2013)

Directed by Kimberly Peirce. Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Judy Greer, Ansel Elgort, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell, Karissa Strain, Barry Shabaka Henley. [R]

Stephen King’s first novel becomes cinematic fodder once again, with Moretz and Moore adequately essaying a shy, bullied teenager with telekinetic powers and her ultra-religious wack job of a mother respectively, but they’re a far cry from Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie from the original filmed rendition. Practically a scene-for-scene remake, and when it does tweak its predecessor, it’s never an improvement. The climactic scenes are especially dismaying, as CGI renders some of the action so over-the-top as to just seem silly, and it alters Carrie’s psychology—instead of a disassociative trance of murderous rage, the protagonist appears to be experiencing euphoria while unleashing calculated vengeance, rendering her both less terrifying and less of a sympathetically tragic figure. Peirce has proven in the past to be a good director, but she’s a routine stylist here; nothing tried here can compete with Brian De Palma’s dream-like spell, his ghoulish suspense tactics, his lurid camerawork. Elgort’s film debut.

40/100